In episode 36 learn how to make easy gluten-free stuffing with this moist, delicious, and easy recipe that tastes just like Mom’s! The key for making classic, traditional GF herb stuffing taste just like the Thanksgiving dressing you grew up on is in the eggs! Join Melissa, gluten-free cookbook author, as she shares many easy, pro tips to make this audio recipe for gluten-free dressing, so good, everyone at the Thanksgiving table will be reaching for seconds!
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Recipes and Resources Mentioned
Recommended Equipment
- Kitchen-Aid Stand Mixer (for bread)
- Flex Edge Paddle Attachment (for bread)
- Baking Sheets
Recommended ingredients
- Psyllium Husk Powder (for bread)
- Cup4Cup All Purpose Gluten-Free Flour (for bread)
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Transcript
Hey, this is Melissa Erdelac, host of the Gluten Free Recipe Challenge podcast and creator behind the gluten free website Mamagourmand. Here we take beloved recipes you thought you’d never enjoy again and transform them into easy copycat versions just as good as the originals.
So, continuing on with our Thanksgiving recipes, stuffing is another recipe that I convinced myself for the longest time didn’t really care that I couldn’t eat it. I mean, as a kid, I completely ignored the stuff, so it couldn’t be good.
During my college summers, I would go out to Nantucket and wait tables, and there I was introduced to this mind blowing gem called a turkey terrific sandwich. And it was roasted turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce and mayonnaise, and it was between two slices of Portuguese bread. And obviously all this I ate before my gluten free era.
But now, fast forward to the gluten free era, and this is when I have to endure my husband every year, the day after Thanksgiving, not shutting up about how excited he was to eat a turkey fucking terrific. And I just have to sit there and listen to it and watch him eat it. That’s when I started to get pissed off I couldn’t have stuffing.
So, enough was enough, and my stuffing recipe was born. When creating this recipe, I tried to mimic the taste and texture of the one that I grew up on. My mom made hers with, she always uses a Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix for the bread and the seasoning, but then she added a bunch of other shit to it, and it almost has this, like, savory bread pudding texture with the classic flavor, but she also added apples to hers too.
After many years of living without it, this is what I exactly wanted to replicate. And, side note, have you ever tried the packaged gluten free stuffing mixes?
Don’t. They really suck. And if you’re buying them in the hopes that you won’t feel miserable and left out on Thanksgiving, that’s not going to accomplish that. It’s all dry and crumbly, and the bread separates into, like, these little dry bread islands. This stuffing recipe is not that, and is completely worth the calories.
And speaking of that, ignore the amount of butter in the recipe. It’s Thanksgiving, and you can burn it all off the next day when you online Christmas shop.
So, the base of the recipe starts with my gluten free bread recipe, which makes a two pound loaf. You can also use store bought bread. If you do that, you’ll need two loaves of bread, and I recommend either Canyon Bakehouse or Schar.
But… Also, just make the homemade bread. It’s not hard, and I say that with complete sincerity, and you can make it way ahead of time before you’re going around freaking crazy because it’s Thanksgiving.
Begin by slicing the bread into 1/2 inch cubes, and divide it up between two baking sheets. And the reason I do that is just so there’s enough air around the bread to really dry it out. So you could either set it out at room temperature for 24 hours, or if you need to do it faster, you could toast the bread cubes in a 225 degree oven for 30 to 40 minutes and then just stir it every 10 minutes or so.
Okay, so now that you have your dry bread, then you could start making your stuffing. Liberally grease with butter a 9 by 13 inch baking dish. If that is too much stuffing for you, you can halve the recipe too, if you’re only making this for yourself or a few people. But it also freezes really well. You could freeze it in little individual serving sizes and have it after Thanksgiving too.
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and then… Begin by getting a large, deep skillet and melt six tablespoons of butter in it. Don’t worry, there’s more butter. Add three stalks of chopped celery and one chopped onion to it.
And then just cook and stir that for about eight minutes or so until the vegetables are soft. Then to the butter vegetable mixture, you’re going to add your herbs. So… Add 1/3 cup of fresh chopped parsley, 1 1/2 teaspoons of dried sage, 3/4 teaspoon of dried thyme, 3/4 teaspoon of dried marjoram, one and a half teaspoons of salt and a half a teaspoon of pepper.
You can also substitute out any of the dried herbs for fresh. And as a general rule of thumb, if you have one teaspoon of dried herbs, then swap that out with one tablespoon of fresh herbs. So just cook and stir that for a minute longer and then remove that mixture from the heat.
Now it’s time to mix together this stuffing. In a large bowl, whisk together three whole eggs and one egg yolk. This is what binds the bread together. It’s more eggs, and plus it has the yolk too, as regular stuffing recipes, because Gluten free bread doesn’t have gluten in it, so it has a harder time binding together. We’re trying to avoid those sad little dry bread islands, so I add an extra egg yolk to this as well.
Once you have that all whisked together, then add the dried bread, one peeled and diced apple, the butter herb mixture with the vegetables, and then pour two cups of gluten free broth over that. You can either use chicken broth or vegetable broth, and then just stir that to combine.
Spread the mixture in your prepared baking dish, and then melt another three tablespoons of butter. This is the last of the butter and drizzle that over the top. So here’s the other thing I do to help bind the bread mixture. I cover it with foil and bake it for half the time with the foil on top. So bake it for 25 minutes and then you remove the foil 20 to 25 minutes longer, So the top starts to brown, but you still have that moist interior inside of it.
That’s the basic recipe, but you can also check out the recipe post for making other versions of it. If you want to replicate your own family’s version, you might find a similar variation there. I have directions for making a drier stuffing if that’s what you were used to eating and no judgment there, uh, you could add sausage, dried fruit.
You could use cornbread. There’s a variation for making a dairy free version or a less aggressive sized portion. So not a 9 by 13 pan. You can also check out the recipe post for making stuffing muffins, which is incredibly fun to say how to make this ahead of time, freeze it. And then also how to reheat the leftovers.
Remember you can find the full printable recipe on the show notes page and to get to it click on the link provided in whatever podcast app you’re listening on or go to my recipe website which is mamagourmand. com and click on the podcast tab and there you’ll find the full recipe along with any recommended ingredients or equipment.
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